Whistleblowers will spend lives in prison for telling us about our own government

Two men, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, are likely to spend the rest of their lives in jail because they gave us a glimpse of what our government is doing in our name.

Similar to Daniel Ellsberg in my generation, these men have put their idealism ahead of their personal fate. Certainly “they” tried to “get Ellsberg” but failed. This week, “they” forced down an aircraft that they thought might be carrying Snowden so it had to be rerouted. “They” will stop at nothing to assure that such a release of information never occurs in the future and we are kept in the dark.

Again the public has been “brainwashed” to believe that the ”truth” of these matters is not as they clearly are — like the weapons of mass destruction that were not! But no one appears to care, and the killing and the destruction go on.

Why should families here and in Afghanistan suffer so much? Why should our infrastructure suffer because the assets are used elsewhere to try to maintain the “empire” that we have created?

Anyone who knows history knows how this all will end if we do not change our goals and methods of operation — absolutely similar to the Roman Empire and many others.